Pillars of Sand
by SonicTeamCE
Summary: "River, wake up. You're bleeding." Because like stone, their happiness always somehow manages to crumble. Angsty follow-on companion piece to Pillars of Stone. Mature themes.


**AN ~ Things I did this November: graduated, joined a choir, and wrote 50K of a novel XD And now I bring you the angsty, depressing companion piece to my fluffy Pillars of Stone ( www . /s/8686646/1/Pillars-of-Stone – without spaces). I wrote almost the whole thing (both Pillars) flowing on from each other, so while it's not necessary that you read Of Stone, I recommend it.**

**Also, after seeing the most recent NCIS episode, guest starring our very own Alex Kingston as Miranda Pennybaker, well-connected but black-market-y mystery British woman with SEVEN aliases and in love with a man whose name is "none of your business", I could not help myself but to construct a crossover! Want to do a good job though, so stay tuned ;) If my idea looks like it'll last, first chapter should be up before Christmas.**

**Anyway, I'd say enjoy, but what I mean is...dark waters lie ahead.**

Pillars of Sand

The Doctor was staring up at the roof, his thoughts roaming as they so often did on nights like these. River had been sleeping peacefully, steadily beside him - well, half on top of him, but he really didn't mind – when suddenly, she shook. It was not a tremble of fear, he diagnosed immediately, or else she would have grabbed at his shirt, or her expression would have faltered. As his mind flicked through the possibilities, it happened again; a momentary shivering of her shoulders.

Yes, that was it. A shiver. She was cold.

Ever so gently, he rolled the sleeping River off himself. Already drowsily grappling for another pillow, for some other arrangement of her body that felt as good as he had, she moaned - moping a little, missing him, so he whispered;

"It's okay. I'm here." He touched her shoulder, just to assure her, and she fell silent once more.

He ran his finger from her shoulder along her side. She was wearing the grey dress. He loved that dress, despite all it meant for them – her last kiss, or so she had thought – but also because of it. He had found out who she was in this dress. It made him smile. But, he noted with a frown, it probably was not the most comfortable thing to sleep in. Especially not with the belt, and _especially _not with the boots.

The Doctor sat on the end of the bed, and stretched himself across it until he could reach her feet. He pulled the boot from one of them, and then the sock, and kissed the bridge of her foot. It was a little sweaty, and smelt like sock, but that was okay. He had been covered in Star Whale sick once – which, he realised, may not have been the most romantic thought to come to his head after such a supposedly romantic act, but the point remained that there were worse scents than River's beautiful feet. So after sliding the boot and the sock from the other foot, and kissing that one too, he turned his attention to her belt.

He could unbuckle it easily, but he didn't want to slide it out from under her as it was studded, and he hated the thought of running all those studs over her skin. He wanted to get her out of the dress, too...perhaps just unzip it and get her to roll out of both at once? He didn't want to disturb her though, and she seemed to be sleeping well enough with it on, so he just undid the belt and left it at that. He discarded his own shoes, and changed into some dark blue flannelette pyjamas that Rory had insisted on giving him last Christmas. Apparently they – the pyjamas - were supposed to have sent him a message. He hadn't got it yet, but they certainly made cuddling the sleeping River much more comfortable.

The couple whiled away the night a while longer in peaceful silence, and the Doctor began to wish he could see her dreams. Here, tonight, they were not nightmares. They were making her smile. They were making her feel safe, and loved, and tonight the lonely little girl in the space suit was at peace.

Until.

He smelt it first. He couldn't quite place it. Metallic, earthy, bitter. It soured his dreaming mood, dispelling thoughts of River to other sections of his mind much less favourable at this moment in time, when he finally had his arms wrapped around her and they had stopped running. Now that he was distracted, other sensations, unwanted sensations, bombarded his senses - and that's when he felt it. Like paint, seeping through the leg of his pants, but...warm. That's when he recognised the smell, and his hearts stuttered in his chest.

The Doctor thrust the bed cover off them both, and the rush of cold air seemed to wash straight through him. On the leg of his pants, it was a deep purple colour. On River's dress, a murky brown. But on the white sheet beneath them, it was bright, inescapable red.

"River, wake up. You're bleeding."

Her eyes snapped open and she bolted into a sitting position, already scanning the room for threats, muscles braced. When she saw the blood, her eyes widened, and when she saw the horror, the pain, the guilt on her Doctor's adorable face, the urge to fight rapidly dissolved like a tablet dropped in a glass of water.

River threw herself off the bed, and staggered into the bathroom and with trembling arms, held herself over the sink. Using one hand like a comb, she raked as much hair out of the way as she could and dug her fingernails into her scalp, trying to convince herself that he could not see or hear her as she emptied the contents of her stomach into the basin.

The Doctor tried not to listen, tried to resist even the urge to search for her as he methodically stripped each sheet from the bed, and bundled them up in his arms, and took them down the corridor to the incinerator one by one. Every time he felt himself seeking the bathroom door, he yanked harder at the white sheets, squeezed them tighter, threw them into the burner with increasing brutality. How dare he be in pain. How dare he. How dare he try to find her, to crowd her when she clearly wanted to be alone.

Clenching his jaw so tightly that spots and stars, like tiny galaxies, flashed in the corners of his vision, the Doctor grabbed an armful of purple manchester and hauled it to the bedroom. His shoulders were braced as firmly as steel now, his fingers all but tearing the material, with the effort of trying to block out the sounds of River's- River's...weakness.

He bit his lip, and looked up at the roof as if he could see through it and into the distant stars as deeply as he wanted to see into her heart right now.

_Can't you stop it?_

He tried to imagine silence. Instead, his ears were filled with the hiss of water hitting tiles.

.o.o.o.

River was huddled in the far corner of the shower. Her dress was darkened with water, and a miniature stream of red-brown liquid trickled from her corner toward the drain. Her hair hung in clumps and drabbles around her face, and her eyes looked equally forlorn, staring blankly at the opposite corner of the cubical.

When she saw the door fly open, her gaze flickered towards him. He was horrified so much more openly now, frozen in a half-crouch, stunned by her unforeseen reaction to the whole thing. Oh so adorable. She shook her head and looked down at her fingers, where they picked at a loose thread on a dress she would never wear again.

Slowly, he crossed the room and sat down outside the shower with his back against the wall.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked, his tone so gentle it ached. River shook her head, still studying her fingers.

"I didn't know."

"No spoilers," the Doctor almost growled, hitting his knee with a fist, but not daring to use any kind of serious strength.

"I did not know, I swear," River repeated. Now the tears were prickling; how could he not trust her? How could he think she would lie about something like this? Then she thought – we'd be terrible parents, it never would have worked out anyway. And at no point did the possibility of life that had just been lost enter into her emotions. Into her mind, yes, of course, but why wasn't she crying for the child that was bleeding out of her?

"How do you feel?" he asked. "Openly, River, all of it. You're my wife and that's – that was...I want to know everything you feel right now."

River turned her attention inward, to try to answer him. Her throat was burning with acid, and with the foul taste of regurgitated food. Her stomach broiled, now empty, and below that, there was this...

"Emptiness."

The word was barely even spoken, but it was the only way she could describe it. She looked down at her belly, and with one hand, drew a small circle on it. Inside, her flesh burned and prickled, occasionally seizing up as it tried to hold on to what was long, long lost. It didn't hurt as much as it felt like it should.

She felt an arm around her shoulder, and her eyes refocused. All her senses recalibrated slightly; not snapping out of whatever this was, but shaking, as if a pebble had been dropped into the pool of her misery. That pebble was, as usual, the Doctor; he had come to sit beside her, ignoring the awkward press of the corner of the shower, or the bloody water he was getting all over himself.

"The TARDIS is taking us to your parents," he said, with a short sigh laden with sorrow and apology. "I don't know when they are, but they'll know you."

River nodded her thanks, and surrendered to the pull of his arm, letting herself fall to the side so that she was leaning against his chest. He wrapped both arms around her, and rested his chin on her head, and she knew that – just as he always did – he was apologising for the fact that, no matter how hard he tried, he apparently could not make her life anything more than what it was. She closed her eyes, and lifted weak hands to rest on his. She could feel her heartbeat under his hands. He was listening to it too. She closed her eyes, and the words that spent her whole life on the tip of her tongue reverberated around the room unspoken.

_Is it too much to ask..?_


End file.
